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Mrs.
McGowan's Class
~ Belle’s Journey:
A Collaborative Story ~ First grade classmates wrote this story together. Writing in small groups with their teacher acting as scribe, they were able to practice rereading and revision skills with teacher support. At the end, you can read how we did it. |
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Belle’s Journey Main Characters
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Chapter One
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Chapter Two
President George W. Bush was happy to see them but he didn’t know why. From the top of the monument they saw the reflection pool and the Atlantic Ocean. Mr. President decided to go with the friends to Texas, his home state. However, he did not like riding on the dolphin so he didn’t go with them. The fairy spell was broken.
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Chapter Three Written by Matt, Michael and Cole They traveled for four hours without a problem. Suddenly, they saw a shark fin coming toward them. Dolphin swam faster and faster until they found a cruise ship.
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Chapter Four Written by Grace, Tyler, Brielle and Patrick Belle, Squeaky, Dolphin and Penguin were tired. They swam near an airport and hopped a plane that was going to Texas.
Back in the ocean, they traveled east and swam until they reached South Carolina. Penguin and Dolphin said goodbye and went back toward Antarctica. Belle and Squeaky spent the night at Tyler’s house. No one was home there.
The End |
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~ Our
Collaborative Writing: How We Wrote the Story ~ The class was divided into 4 heterogeneous groups, with each group responsible for writing one page or chapter. I sat with my students and had the role of scribe and facilitator. I asked leading questions, suggested times to reread what was written and modeled this several times, asked for any changes - basically guided the group, making sure everyone had opportunity to contribute. After their section was completed, the students alternated reading parts to the small group until everyone had a chance to read all the sentences. While this was going on, other classmates were becoming very interested in the story and looking forward to having "their turn" to write together. The children developed a problem and solution early in the story. Each group had ideas to make the animals' journey an adventure! The following day, our second group gathered to create the "next installment". This continued until the whole story was written. By the time our last group was ready to do their part, they were expecting to reread to make it better and had the most success with this strategy for revision. Writing collaboratively
is highly motivating to new writers and provides a good scaffold to
teach rereading/revising skills.
elements
© 2006 M. McGowan - All rights reserved. |
A
fairy came and changed them into people. 
Back
on the ocean, they kept going south and came to North Carolina.
They decided to climb some mountains. They were all having fun
until the black bear showed up! He chased them down the mountain,
all the way to the beach.
Jumping
out of the water before they shark could get them, the friends met
the captain. He showed them around the cruise ship because he
thought they were passengers. So the fairy spell must be working
again!
They
liked the pool and the bedrooms but they wanted to leave the ship.
They said goodbye to the captain and jumped overboard. They were
near Cape Canaveral now and saw the space shuttle blast off!
The
next day the friends went to a rodeo. Penguin’s wish was to see a
real cowboy. They all had a great time there until they heard that a
hurricane was coming. 
Then
they took a train going north to Spring Lake, New Jersey. They
walked back to school. Bessie and the children were so glad to see
them back in the classroom!